Monday, July 15, 2019

First Kiss

First Kiss
By Michael Cannata







He took her in his arms, looking down at her hauntingly beautiful face. He'd been waiting for this moment all night. She tilted her face upward waiting to feel his lips touch hers. She'd been kissed before but never by a man as strong and confident as he was.

Her trembling lips pursed in anticipation as he drew closer. He never thought this moment would come and his excitement became even greater. He'd admired her from the moment he first saw her. She was cautious, always being wary of strangers and showed no willingness to share in his first attempts to chat, but gradually she warmed up to him
.
They met in the local Laundromat where they both spent Saturday afternoons doing their wash loads. He started a casual conversation and did most of the talking in the beginning. He wooed her slowly after their first encounter. Over the last couple of months she had become more animated and involved in their conversation as he hoped she would.

His chance to take things to another level came on a cold, rainy afternoon. Her car wouldn't start and she came back in from the rain looking both angry and distressed. She had no money for a cab and carrying all her laundry home on the bus wasn't possible. He tried to help jump start her car but nothing he did would get it running.

He gallantly offered to give her a ride home. Reluctant at first, she finally smiled and accepted the ride making his heart leap. By the time they reached her house they were laughing and she seemed more at ease than he could have hoped for. She graciously accepted his offer to carry her laundry into the house for her.

The rest of the evening was a pleasant blur as he passed the time enjoying her company the way he'd been dreaming of for so long. But it was a kiss he wanted; the kind of kiss that would make the evening something special. A kiss they would both remember.

Just before he kissed her for the first time, he reached out gently and touched her face. He wiped the blood from her lips, smearing her cheek as it mixed with her tears. He hoped she could see him through her swollen eyes. She pressed against him willingly, finally believing he wasn't going to kill her.

 He should have put the knife away sooner.

Saturday, June 29, 2019

The Knock on the Door



The Knock on the Door





The knocking on the cabin door was hard and rapid, just short of pounding.

“Who the fuck is that?” Sara’s boyfriend, Jim, questioned as he got up to open the door. “It’s almost two in the morning!”

Before she could stop him Jim opened the door and a man covered in blood and clutching a large hammer pushed his way in. He had a crazy look on his face and was yelling something incomprehensible.  She recognized him as one of the people in the cabin next to theirs.

He looked at Sara and started towards her raising the hammer. Jim jumped on him from behind and they fell to the floor. The man kept screaming as Jim did his best to hold him down.

 Ned and Jan, the couple that was sharing the cabin with them, emerged from the back bedroom to find Jim and the blood covered man wrestling on the floor.

As Ned jumped onto the lunatic the hammer fell to the floor. As Jan stood screaming in the corner, Sara picked up the hammer and tried to help end the terror. She did her best to help and started to swing the hammer at the crazy men. She wasn’t sure if the man was dead when she stopped swinging. Jim and Ned were lying on the floor on top of the lunatic. She couldn’t remember what happened to her girlfriend. Everything became a blur.

The next thing she knew she was running through the woods clutching the hammer and looking for a place to hide. Exhausted, she finally fell and crawled under some brush and tried to be still. She wasn’t sure if she was being followed and she didn’t want to be found. She tried to calm her panting.

Confused, she started to go over the events of the night. A night filled with hate, violence and terror. How could something like this happen? They were just out for a fun weekend. What would drive a man so crazy that he would break into a cabin filled with strangers and try to kill them all? Why? And then she remembered.

It was all because of that slut, Judy.

Sara had started dating Jim about 6 months ago. He was a handsome, popular boy and many other girls had sought his company. Sara was easily the most beautiful girl around yet was regarded as a bit of a prude. She didn’t “put out” as they say.

Despite her reputation as a “good girl”  Jim was drawn to her. He was aggressive and, like most boys, did all he could to bed her. Still, true to her nature, Sara resisted most of his advances because she wanted to wait until marriage. She would only go so far. Jim seemed to understand and backed off after his initial attempts. It didn’t take long for Sara to decide that Jim was the man she wanted to marry.

When she discovered the texts on his phone from Judy everything changed. Her plans to marry Jim were suddenly threatened in a serious way. Jim never let on that he was screwing Judy on the side and she couldn’t confront him.

When she heard that Judy was going to the lake for the weekend and Jim suddenly suggested that he, Sara and their best friends go to the lake on the same weekend, Sara knew she had no choice. It was now or never.

Jim had had too much to drink and fell asleep on the couch. Ned and Jan had gone into the bedroom earlier. Sara could hear the couples in the cabin next to them partying. She slipped out of the cabin and went over to Judy’s cabin and knocked softly. A large man she didn’t know answered the door and called to Judy.

Judy came to the door and smiled when she saw Sara standing there. She emerged from the cabin to smoke a cigarette, blowing the smoke casually as Sara confronted her about the affair. Rather than deny it she just laughed at Sara.

“Oh, come on, Sara!” she taunted. “What makes you think that a priggish little girl like you could hold on to someone like Jim? Shit, from what he told me you won’t even jerk him off or let him get under your shirt. It’s a shame really because you have such nice titties.” When she reached out and ran her hand over Sara’s breasts something in Sara snapped.

She shoved Judy as hard as she could and Judy fell back hitting her head against the wood piled on the side of the cabin. Sara picked up an old hammer lying near the pile and started smashing Judy in her beautiful, smirking face.

She heard someone from inside the cabin call out and she ran to stand by the door. Judy’s current lover came out and called her name. It only took one blow from the hammer to send him down. He was bleeding and unconscious when she entered the cabin.

She found the other couple passed out on the couch wrapped in each other’s arms. Both were naked. Neither of them ever woke up as Sara pounded their skulls into bloody messes. By the time she was done it was impossible to see where one head ended and the other began.

She calmly went to Judy’s clothes, picked out some that looked much the same as her blood covered outfit and took a shower. Her boyfriend Jim never noticed the difference when she got back.

Everything was fine until the large man, the one she stepped over thinking he was dead as she left the cabin, knocked on the door.

As she recalled the events of the night Sara knew that no matter how far or fast she ran she would never escape the maniac in the cabin. After all…

… You can never run away from yourself.